


it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull

by siriuslydraco



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:08:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslydraco/pseuds/siriuslydraco
Summary: Sometimes it feels like Kate really did die. Sometimes she wishes she had.
Relationships: Kate Fuller/Seth Gecko
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull

**Author's Note:**

> don't really know what this is- it was like word vomit that came out of me 
> 
> title from the bruce springsteen song i'm on fire

Kate finds out that Amaru has a sick fascination with thwarting her memories a week into being ridden as her puppet. The newfound delight (that bubbles up inside Kate's own chest but a feeling that is purely constructed by the demon she now shares a mind with) is twisted and warped and each time Kate tries to shove her memories deep down a cruel and manic laugh escapes her own lips. 

She feels crazy most days- like she's someone who has two polar personalities that are crowding her already fragile mind. But she keeps reminding herself that only _one_ of those voices is really her. Her soul and mind battle on- and Amaru keeps on laughing at her.

She brings up the memory of kissing Kyle in the back of the church, and Kate watches as if she is back in that past moment, spectating with red cheeks on the scene as if she is having an outer body experience. Amaru lashes visions before Kate's weak mind like a reeling picture show- latching onto stronger ones like hearing her Mama was dead for the first time or how quickly she had jabbed the stake into her Daddy's heart. 

Red blood spattered on her face, a taste of dirt on her tongue and a pair of dark eyes staring back at her. _You want some company?_ Amaru likes to replay that memory specifically, and does not hesitate to sneer at Kate in the process. _Foolish and weak,_ she leers from the forefront of Kate's mind as she uses Kate's own hands to dig sharp nail marks into her arm _, running off with the man who destroyed your family._

The Mexican heat, heroin needles and the smell of burning as Seth crumples into a heap. She likes to toy with those memories too. And she likes to warp them. She can make Kate see things that aren't really there- make her feel things that aren't true either and sometimes she makes Kate see Seth shake and seize, and she screams and hits his lifeless form before realising he's gone for good. Sometimes she makes her believe she had killed him by injecting him wrong somehow, or overdosing him. Sometimes he's attacked by a culebra in the darkness or shot in the stomach, and she holds him as he bleeds. Then the vision is warped and it's Kate who is shot in the stomach and Seth is holding _her_ as she bleeds out. Amaru knows that that vision is the cruellest because Kate really had bled out- but Seth hadn't been there to hold her. 

Her vicious sobs mix with Amaru's sinister laughter and then Kate is pulled back to the present- her eyes finding her reflection and seeing ruby hair and leather. She should be relieved to be pulled out of the prison of her own damn mind, but knowing who she is now- _what_ she is now is more brutal. Amaru won't share Kate's body forever, and she's willing to break her mind to be rid of her. 

Sometimes it feels like Kate really did die. Sometimes she wishes she had. 

But sometimes when Amaru is too busy to toy with Kate's mind- instead focusing on destroying the realm of men and the race of culebras- Kate likes to sink into her memories instead of fighting. She feels almost like a kid who's parent left for the day and decides to watch whatever they want on tv or eat all the junk food lying around. She lounges in her memories- the ones she knows are real and takes comfort in the ones she has managed to keep safe from the prying claws of an Xibalban demon. 

Her favourites are the ones of Seth- his smile and the twinkle in his eyes when he'd tell her stories of Uncle Eddie or previous scores he'd successfully pulled off. The way he'd always touch her with his hands, rough and warm on her arm or on her back as he'd guide her along despite the fact she was always capable by herself. The way he'd say _Kate_ \- languid and rough and _different_ than the way anyone else would say it. 

The way he'd held her that one time in some crappy bar they'd cased- her wearing a green sundress as she'd swayed in the circle of his arms- Bruce Springsteen playing on some speakers. But those memories hadn't been safe for long. 

Amaru digs deep with claws as sharp as knives and Kate can feel each hole that's punctured in her mind as her memories are torn and ripped to shreds until that image too is warped for good. Now Kate can't seem to remember what it was really like to be held by him- is now just convinced it wasn't real at all because in Amaru's version Seth gets shot in the back as they dance. 

It's an odd feeling to feel your own heart break and tremor all at once when you're not even in control of your body. It's like an amputees itch- a phantom feeling of a limb you no longer have. That's how Kate feels when she sees Seth in that junk yard- like her heart is beating rapidly but at the same time she doesn't _really_ feel it. Not like how she would feel it if she wasn't sharing her body. 

She's screaming at him- begging him with her eyes to just shoot her or run or to do something to stop this- but one squeak of pain from Kate's lips and Seth's hard demeanour is shattered like a sheet of ice. He bends to help her- hold her- and Amaru rears her head sharply and roars inside of Kate. She now has what she was hoping for- now she has an answer to all the mismatched pieces of memory she has been ripping from Kate. 

Kate loves Seth. And Seth loves her. 

_"You lied, you do have a soul"_ Amaru sneers out of Kate's mouth- that unfamiliar voice trickling from her lips like stale honey and inside Kate cringes at how evil she sounds. She never wanted to speak that way to Seth. Never. And she's screaming and kicking an invisible wall inside of herself as her own hands grab him and start sucking his soul clean from his veins. 

She sees into his soul then like she has with so many others- a shared sort of side effect she's gained from her possession- and around her the world stops. She knows everything then and it's wonderful and terrible all at once and she's grateful when Scott wounds her and makes Amaru step back. There are wet, hot tears on her cheeks and Amaru wipes them away furiously. _Weak_ , she sneers to Kate but a wicked curve plays around her mouth. She knows all of Seth's desires now and knows he would do anything for Kate. It's information that Amaru will use to break him like how she's breaking Kate. 

But in the end she doesn't break either of them- all Amaru does is make Seth and Kate stronger than ever. Kate can at least be grateful for that- for the fact that he had fought as hard as he had to get her back, for the fact that he had given her his blood to save her from the brink of death. 

She opens her eyes and sees through them clearly as herself for the first time in what feels like centuries, and she sees him. Seth. Standing beneath a cross with a look of disbelief written on his handsome features and she feels as if this is her renewal, her birth, her second coming and redemption all rolled into one. How funny it is, she thinks, for a man like Seth to look so holy and godly in that moment, but she delights in the fact that he's the one she sees first. 

She knows now, thanks to Amaru and her unholy fixture of tearing souls apart that Seth loves her. She had saw it in every flickering memory that had sporadically jumped around his head like a shaken jar of marbles and in the way she had tasted his determination to get her back. Kate tells him she loves him back, not in so many words, but by the way his eyes sparkle hopefully as he looks at her before she walks into hell tells Kate that he knows. 

Kate discovers however that saving the world and professing your love moments before your probable death is not how it looks in movies. There is no proverbial ride off into the sunset or momentary amnesia when it comes to trauma like how it's portrayed on the big screen- where everything is tied up neatly in a bow. 

Kate wakes up now in motel rooms with soaking sheets and damp clothes and matted red hair that sticks to her face. She wakes to hear her own voice screaming- the memories of Amaru's torture clawing their way to the surface of her sleeping mind. That's how it is now. 

Even when they're off the road and back at Jed's, Kate still feels like looking over her shoulder for the lurking shadow of a demon. She braces herself when she's alone- as if at any moment she'll feel claws dig deep once again. But they never come. All she feels now are arms and hands- rough and warm- that once again guide her but this time she is not as capable as before. She lets those hands hold her and lead her and somehow Seth becomes her safety net she jumps into when she falls from the precipice. If he ever has a complaint about her late night screaming or sobbing he does not voice it aloud. 

He holds her in his arms- tight and secure like vices but they're a prison Kate would willingly be holed away in and she stays there without protest. It's not until a week after getting back to Houston that Seth decides to sleep in Kate's room with her, but he needs her permission as a prompt to move from the chair he had decided to rest in and into the bed. She gives it to him freely- and Amaru sneers cruelly from the back of her mind. Kate stiffens in his arms under the covers- just shakes her head when he asks what's wrong and tries to focus on telling herself that it's her mind playing tricks on her. It's not real. 

Amaru is gone. For good this time. And Kate is here- alive - in Seth's arms where she belongs. 

But that taunting voice that rings around her head like another warped memory keeps leering and screeching violently from the depths of her mind. It doesn't stop and sometimes it gets so loud that Kate begins to shake- convinced then that Amaru is back inside her like before. _You thought you could get rid of me, you foolish girl._ _You'll never be rid of me._

But before she can sink deep, deep, _deeper_ into the cavity of despair that is festered inside of her- Seth comes to her. Dark and brooding as he is, he proves to be meticulous in his care for her. Never leaving her side too long and never pushing her to talk about things she doesn't have to. Maybe that's why he never asks her what she meant in that cave in Matanzas. 

But Kate is certain Seth knows she loves him, but the unsureness of Seth's feelings hangs between them like a noose. She had seen into the depths of his soul- had felt how much he loved her, how much he grieved when he had lost her but that was before she had red hair and red eyes. Did becoming a puppet for an entity of Xibalba make Seth's love stale for her? Like a festering wound that never closes fully but still stings. Was that all that was left now? Did Seth see her as someone else now? The old Kate dead and gone, and in her place remains a statue of unforgiving emptiness.

She explodes one night in a fit of rage when she has a nightmare about killing Seth. He begs her in that gravelly voice of his, those eyes of amber brown fading as the soul and life drains from him. She screams at herself loudly from the back of her mind- begging her hands to work for themselves so that they can drop from Seth's grey and veiny face but they don't work. _Please don't, princess._ His voice goes weak and so does his slack body, and inside her mind she winces at the thud of it against the ground as it drops- but a high manic laugh rings from her mouth. 

Her hair is soaked with sweat when her eyes fly open and she finds Seth alive and well- asleep in the bed beside her. Clearly she had not screamed aloud in her sleep tonight- a small victory she can't bring herself to celebrate. She launches from the bed rapidly- the sharp digging claws and cruel voice following her every footstep as she almost runs from the room. 

Richie had hung a punching bag from the roof of the basement and she kicks and punches it fiercely as she feels hot tears roll down her face. Her nightmare had taunted her tremendously because it had happened in some degree as depicted- and it could have ended like that in real life. Seth could have died, and she would have been the one that killed him. 

She's angry as she swings her fist at the bag- ignoring the pain in her knuckles as her skin begins to split and crack. She kicks and kicks until her leg can't lift itself anymore and then she collapses to the ground- her bleeding hands mingling in with her hair that flows the same colour. 

It's how Seth finds her- worn and tired on the ground with tears in her eyes and blood on her hands. He gathers her up- his plump lips coming to her hands to kiss away the bruises and when Kate looks at him with watery green eyes that seem to pierce into him, he can't help but kiss her lips too. 

She doesn't stop him or protest- only moulds into him and finally feels like she's found the place she's always meant to be. She doesn't know whether this is all part of her nightmare and that at any moment it's going to end or that Seth will die somehow like how he did in all those constructed and painful visions Amaru made her believe.

She hears Amaru's voice in her head as she kisses Seth. _What would your Daddy think of you now if he could see? Your Mama would be so disappointed in you._ She hears it as Seth runs his fingers through her hair and pulls her close. She hears it when he pulls away and tells her he loves her.

He _loves_ her- for who she is- despite what she's done. Just how she loves him.

But she ignores the cruelty of it and pushes the taunts deep down where they belong. The voice is not really there- _you won't win_ , Kate promises in her mind- it's just a leftover memory of Amaru that will one day fade away. 

"It's going to be okay, Kate. I promise you" Seth tells her against her lips- his large hands around her face and she nods, eyes closing as she kisses him again. 

She believes him. 


End file.
